BANS Affiliate Sites – eBay and Google Drop the Hammer
Is Google dropping the hammer on BANS sites??? For some BANS (Build a Niche Store) owners, it’s been a pretty tough last few months. Back in August eBay expired hundreds of affiliates, many reportedly had BANS sites. Now according to many affiliates “Google has been either penalizing or out right de-indexing BANS sites from the SERPS.”
I’d like to stress that if you are just whipping up a bunch of out-of-the box BANS sites, then those would be seen by Google as “thin” affiliate sites. I assume site’s like that would also be counter-productive to eBay’s “effort to focus on delivering the highest quality buyer traffic.” If you want to use something like BANS or other datafeed tools you need to customize and offer some type of VALUE ADD on your site. The article below offers lots of suggestions.
Don from AffiliateWatcher offers a list of reasons why he thinks BANS are getting del-isted, suggestions about what you can do to stay in the serps and offers some alternatives to BANS.
Will Google Deliver The Death Blow For BANS Sites?
“I’m knocking on wood here. If you remember right from my initial Build A Niche Store Review, my goal was to build 100 BANS sites. Now I’m thanking my lucky stars that I have AMADD (Affiliate Marketing Attention Deficit Disorder) and only made it to 30 sites before I lost focus and went off doing something else.My Theory On Why Google Hasn’t De-Indexed All BANS Sites
Even as far back as when I bought the Build A Niche Store program, there was talk about Google finding the footprint of all the standard BANS templates and possibly penalizing them. It seems this bird has come home to roost. From the start, here is what I did to try and make my BANS sites unique from all the other cookie cutter BANS sites.”
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#1 John wrote on Wednesday, October 1st, 2008:
That is the reason that I never use scripts to build my sites, I rather use original content that links to affiliate sites.
#2 Linda Buquet wrote on Wednesday, October 1st, 2008:
Hi John, thanks for stopping by. Original content is always best but featuring a bunch of the merchant’s products on your site has it’s advantages too. You just have to be creative and add value! I just found a cool way to easily do that. Need to research it some more and then will blog it.
#3 Forrester Rupp wrote on Wednesday, October 1st, 2008:
What more added value do people want than exactly what they are looking for plus items that complement, go with, add to, or complete, their original search?
I build automotive EPN sites
I build sites (whose sole purpose) is specific to products sold at eBay (not with BANS) but this applies to anyone building sites specifically for the EPN using their own script developed through the eBay Developer Program.
Content is the last thing my visitors want…
They want the products/auctions and means to buy (or see the products) that I provide them, and in the way I, list and categorize, them because I know what they need or want from a Mechanic’s perspective
They want to search thru the listings AS I list the products they are looking for in a way that they can find what they are looking for, because I know what they want. They come to my site because the sites/domain is usually also exactly keyword specific to their search.
If google would go back to their algo from 3 years ago and list/rank sites according to how closely a site satisfies the needs/desires of the visitor, there would be a lot more satisfied Google searchers, and many more sales at eBay.
eBay buys Adwords for everything under the sun
Maybe eBay should get together with Google and ask them to tweek their algo in some way to give eBay affiliates (EPN Members) that specifically build for eBay items (alone) preference and higher ranking… rather than penalizing them for having little or no content.
Hey, We, EPN Builders, are just trying to give people exactly what they want, with little or no useless thrills bells and whistles, we also show them other items that complement their original search
Google wins because people are happier finding what they want faster, eBay is happier because they have more sales, the searchers would be happier and more prone to use them(Google) more often, and the eBay affiliates are happier because they are earning more for doing what they do so well.
#4 Linda Buquet wrote on Wednesday, October 1st, 2008:
Hey Forrester. Thanks for weighing in! You made some really great point!
#5 Chris wrote on Wednesday, October 1st, 2008:
I shot myself in the foot with my BANS sites to get de-indexed by Google, too many links, too fast. But I digress, because even though search engine rankings have gone to zero in the big G, I am still receiving huge quality scores in regards to Adwords.
This means I am paying damn near nothing for a ton of traffic that converts and I get a big ROI. So for this reason alone I would recommend BANs to someone, if you are planning on paying for some advertising or some sort of PPC campaign.
#6 Google HATES Build a Niche Stores | Ian Fernando wrote on Wednesday, October 1st, 2008:
[...] make your Build a Niche Store unique. Recently I read a post from 5 Star Affiliate Programs that Google is cracking down on Build a Niche Stores. Strange enough I knew it would be since, it [...]